In 2019 there will be many new actions and camps against fossil capitalism across Europe. After the empowering actions last year, the climate movement will continue. We‘re getting more and multifaceted. That‘s great!

We see ourselves as an addition to the structures that already exist – to make resistance even stronger and more diverse. „Zucker im Tank“ (german for “sugar in the fuel tank”) as one of the players wants to support affinity group actions and increase their visibility!
We continue focussing on the support of unpredictable, direct and creative actions anytime and anywhere.

Our common basis with other players is the insight that climate change has to be confronted where it is created. For example in the rhineland, Germanys most important region for lignite excavation. We welcome that also issues like industrial farming, hardcoal and trafic are getting into the focus of the movement more and more.

Skillshares

We want to empower people to aquire the necessary knowledge and skills for being able to make direct actions. Therefore we will organise skillshares together with other groups in different cities and at camps. The goal will be to share knowledge about Actions, organising in small groups and practical skills. We do not imagine one big action but rather diverse forms of action, no matter whether they are seen as legal or illegal by the state.

Critical Solidarity

We will react with solidarity to repression und create support and public attention. We do not want to come up with a strict action consensus but we count on self-responsibility and the taking into consideration of other actions. We cannot and do not want to universally define which forms of action are legitimate and what is violence. More importantly it is necessary to show critical solidarity and respect between each other. No action shall make another impossible.

Connected struggles

We want to connect the struggle for climate with other struggles against authority. The short-lived logic of profit and the dogma of economic growth of capitalism are the opposite of a sustainable solution for the crisis of climate. Therefore, it cannot be solved with within the capitalist logic. The state is no institution in which we put hope because it enforces exactly this economic and social order. By overcoming capitalism alone climate change is not stopped, but rescuing climate and the basis of existence is only possible without it.

Climate justice

But we not only want to fight capitalism and the state. Also, other forms of authority like patriarchy or racism are tightly connected with the cliamte crisis. While everyone is affected by the impacts of climate change, the individual damage strongly depends on the place of living, class and is defined along criteria like Gender and race. people in the global south already suffer the most from cliamte change, although they have historically produced the least Greenhouse gases. People who flee from the impacts of climate change and its interlinks with other crisis are faced with the blatant violence of the European border regime. Also in the global north, People of Color are more strongly affected by climate change than white people. For example after the hurricane Katrina, the destroyed social housings that had been mayorly populated by black people had been replaced by housings for people with mixed income.
While rich people can move to hotel rooms with air condition or easily change their home town, this priviledge is not given to people of lower classes. In agrarian communities in the global south women* suffer more than men* from the effects of climate change, because they are frequently responsible for the accommodation of families and additionally cover a mayority of work in the agricultural production. Also in case of extreme weather events they are frequently more strongly affected as they have a more restriced access to ressources and knowledge.
We also see the exploitation of non-human beings as part of the problem. Not only because the animal production industry contributes a large part to climate change but also because animal exploitation is simply unbearable. The list of topics which we regard to be related can be more extended. One example is the production of weapons, into which a large fraction of the electricity that is produced in the rhineland is directed. With these explanations we want to show that the struggle against climate change also is a feminist, antiracist, anti-state and anti capitalist struggle, a class struggle and a strugle against animal exploitation and militarism. Or in short: a fight against authority in general.

But what‘s connecting the struggle for climate with other struggles? We‘re working on a zine about that at the moment. It will be published (in german) this summer.

…Handcraft!

We want to stop climate change and abolish its cause, capitalism.
But not only that:
We fight for a future that is as free of authority a possible.
We are looking forward to continue a diverse struggle against lignite in 2019!

(1) Although Race and Gender do not represent biological reality but social constructions, we find it important to have words for how people are affected by racism and sexism.
(2) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina